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Category Archives: Dufour Yachts

Multiple interior layouts make the Dufour 382 the “flexible innovator.”

Ever since the company was founded, we at Dufour have always taken pride in our ability to design and build fast, stylish, and super comfortable performance cruisers in the mid-30 foot range. These “mid-sized” yachts have always been popular, and even today, the 35-40 foot range is considered the “heart” of the new boat market.

Some like an L-shaped galley..

So, when we looked to refresh our 30-foot designs, we looked at what worked in the past and what our competition was doing before drawing a single line. And while the desired exterior features were easy to articulate (modern lines, flush decks, comfortable cockpits, etc), the feedback on what makes a good interior layout was harder to pin down because…

…Some customers like their galley along the side of the saloon and others prefer an “L” shape galley layout. Private owners typically want more storage space while charter companies want to maximize sleeping capacity.

And some like a long galley.

So we rose to the challenge and figured out how to design and build several different interior layouts. And what started out as a fairly routine redesign of our mid-size range become a much larger project.

As a result, the Dufour design team worked to develop many as six interior layouts on the new 382. In fact, we call our 382 the “flexible innovator.” As you can see, the available variations are not just basic equipment differences but are instead real floor plan alternatives.

The final result has been nothing short of remarkable. In addition to the superior sailing qualities inherent in the hull and rig platform, the possibility for our customers to have their ideal layout has made the 382 a smashing success. In just 18 months of production, sales have already exceeded the full 4 year production run of the previous model.

So, have you been looking for a “customizable” 30+footer with a production boat price? Your search is over.

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Great Lakes Dufour dealers and founders of Broad Reach Sailing in Chicago are more than just boat dealers. Ted Anderson was the VP of Operations for a large aerospace corporation before he co-founded Broad Reach Sailing with Todd Williamson. Anderson also graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy and was a surface warfare officer and nuclear engineer in the US Navy. Meanwhile, Todd Williamson got hooked on sailing while taking a semester long wilderness course in Baja Mexico. (NOLS). He founded his first sailing school in 2003 and teamed up with Anderson to form Broad Reach Sailing shortly after that.

They love to sail and it shows. The teach sailing. They have a fractional ownership program. And what may be the most fun of all, they sail and race with their customers. They also know that nothing compares with the venerable Chicago-Mac race and they race with a group of Dufour owners every summer.

The crew of the Dufour 405 Jasmin celebrate a strong finish at the end of this year’s Chicago-Mac race.

And this year, the crew of the Dufour 405 Jasmin (pictured above) owned by Dave Ormesher came in fourth out of about 30 boats in the cruising division. While Steve Salk’s brand new Dufour 500 Full Circle and a Dufour 36P also competed in the annual race to the island.

The Great Lakes Dufour community always enjoys Chicago-Mac.

Members of Broad Reach Sailing were part of each crew and as Todd Williamson says, “There’s a great Dufour community on the Great Lakes. We’re all friends and we’re already planning for next year.”

The folks at Broad Reach Sailing know that buying a new Dufour is only the beginning. The real fun starts once their new owners really get to experience the performance and comfort that Dufour’s are known for. And helping new owners get the most out of their boats is what they do best.

If you’re looking for a new boat and are in the Chicago area, go visit Todd and Ted at Broad Reach Sailing. They make it easy to enjoy owning a Dufour.

And be sure to check back later for Part 2 of this series that will cover fractional ownership that Ted, Todd, and other dealers offer.

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Sydney’s famous Opera House is the perfect backdrop for testing the full range of Dufour Yachts that are now being imported to Australia by PCY.

Dufour Yachts is pleased to announce that Performance Cruising Yachts has been named the exclusive agent and importer for Dufour Yachts in Australia.

Performance Cruising Yachts is headed up by Ex-Olympic yacht racer Matt Hayes. PCY is located in exclusive marina facilities at Sydney’s Darling Harbour, and features a staff of 15 that includes service technicians, maintenance personnel, professional skippers and administrative support. It’s also the sister company to successful yacht charter business Sydney by Sail that was established in 2003.

Dufour CEO, Salvatore Serio said, “We are thrilled to confirm our decision to work with Matt Hayes and his extremely talented team at Performance Cruising Yachts. The spectacular location in downtown Sydney is the perfect setting to display our range of modern cruising yachts. Over the past 20 years, Mr. Hayes has developed a proven formula for success and attracted an immense customer following perfectly suited to our products.”

Performance Cruising Yachts’ Matt Hayes said: “Dufour Yachts products are a perfect fit for our broad base of active sailing clients. The outstanding stability and sailing qualities, cruising comforts and high quality finish stand a cut above the other offerings in our marketplace. My recent visit to the Dufour Shipyard in La Rochelle showed me how impressive Dufour is on all levels. I was able to see firsthand how their experienced boat builders are able to take high quality materials and efficiently transform them into exceptional cruising yachts using highly refined processes.”

The partnership started off at the hugely successful Sydney Boat Show last month.

PCY hosted a celebratory cocktail reception that was attended by more than 80 Dufour owners and prospects. And the response to the new models they had on display—310 and 382—and PYC was fantastic.

The newest Dufour is still so new we can only give you a glimpse of the 3D drawings. But its easy to see that the Dufour 460 is a modern, high-performance cruiser that fits perfectly into our line of sophisticated, award-winning boats.

And like the hugely popular 560 (and all of our new-generation models that we partnered with Umberto Felci to design), the smaller, 460 has the same dual wheels in the cockpit, the same highly efficient self-tacking jib, the same, ultra sexy hard chine aft, and of course it’s equipped with the same bow-sprit that forms a great mounting point for code 0 as well as an easier way to deploy the anchor without damaging the boat’s plumb bow.

As you can also see, the new 460 boats the hugely popular aft swim platform and outdoor “galley.”The interior is bright, spacious and modern. The galley up by the bulkhead allows the salon seating area to occupy the widest area of the boat.

The salon also benefits from significant headroom and plenty of light from both fixed windows and opening hatches.

The galley also boasts significant stowage and counter space. Most owners may want to be cooking up on deck, but his galley is also ideally suited for offshore passagmaking.

So that’s just a taste. The first models are being built now and the boat will be making its debut at the Cannes Boat Show in France in September. We’re putting together several VIP tours to see the new 460 as soon as it’s launched over at the factory in France.

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Cruising World Magazine has been test sailing and judging the best new boats of the year after the US Sailboat Show in Annapolis, Maryland since the early 1990’s. And since they test sail up to 24 boats during the week immediately following the show, they can’t really afford to worry about the weather, or going back to the dock in between test sails!

As you’ll see in this behind-the-scenes view of the 2015 Boat of the Year testing on the Chesapeake, they maximize sailing time by jumping from boat to boat on the waters off Annapolis.

And they don’t stop test sailing just because it’s a little windy. In fact, we’re even prouder the Dufour 560 was named Cruising World’s Best Full Sized Cruiser over 50 feet this year because, as you’ll see in the video, the test was conducted on a dark, rainy day in a sporty 20 knot breeze and weather that you’d certainly expect to find on an offshore passage.

Cruising World Senior Editor Herb McCormick (with the notebook above) sums it up beautifully in his report: “One of the best, if sometimes harrowing ways to get a sense of just how massive and voluminous today’s full-size cruisers are is to board one from a rocking inflatable in a rolling seaway. Case in point: approaching the Dufour 560 Grand’ Large for our test sail on a blustery Chesapeake Bay morning in a 20-knot northerly with accompanying 2- to 3-foot seas. Yes, we’d already scrutinized the boat dockside and understood it was a big, powerful yacht. But timing the leap and scrambling up the boarding ladder put the exceptionally high freeboard in its proper perspective. It was like scaling Yosemite’s slab-sided El Capitan. Later, similar adventures boarding the other boats in this category… drove the freeboard nail home with authority. These are all Big Boy boats, with all the attendant space, systems, amenities and sailing prowess that come with that rarified territory.”

The Dufour 560 is big, sexy, speedy, comfortable, and a winner. Check it out.

Decks, on the other hand, are “injection molded” in closed, 2-piece molds. This process allows the finished decks to come out of the molds strong and smooth, so smooth in fact that a finished boat won’t need a liner, but, it does require sophisticated engineering and incredible attention to detail during construction.

Injection molding requires the entire deck to be laid out with specific layers of fiberglass and reinforcing material in high load areas like winch pads and jib tracks etc to laid up all at once on the “bottom” part of the mold that is first sprayed with gel coat that will form the smooth outer later of the deck (pictured above).

Then the “top” which is also covered with a layer of cured gel coat is lowered on to the bottom part that’s laid out with the required sandwich material (pictured above). The two parts are then joined and form an air tight seal and then the magic happens.

It’s not actually “magic” but, once the two parts of the mold are sealed, workers can then start “injecting” the resin into the mold. The resin is pumped in through hoses (pictured above) and the seal insures complete resin saturation. This is ideal because it results in a strong deck without requiring excess resin.

Injection molded decks are virtually flawless (on both sides) when they come out of the mold.

Then workers use jigs to cut out the areas for ports and hatches as well as drill all necessary holes to install all the deck hardware.

Then the deck hardware is attached before the deck is the lowered on to the hull (we’ll talk about this later in a future instalment of this multi-part series).

And the best part is, the underside of the deck is beautiful. This allows for increased headroom (since no deck liner is needed) and the sleek, modern look Dufour Yachts are known for.

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All Dufour Yachts are built in our facility in La Rochelle, France. They all combine fine hand craftsmanship with innovative high-tech construction techniques. It all starts with the hull, and this is how we do it.

It actually all starts in a hull mold (pictured above). We start with a flawless, highly polished two-piece mold and then spray layers of gelcoat that form the outer layer of each hull. Each hull is then laid up with a precise, highly engineered number of layers of fiberglass, resin, and various core materials that are all placed in each mold by hand.

Here you can see the hull is beginning to take shape. Notice the layers of fiberglass and resin that have already been applied. Also notice how the rudder area is reinforced. Our molds are built on special rollers (pictured below) so they can be rotated in-place. This makes it much easier for workers to lay the various layers.

This shot shows the underside of one of our molds. And as you can see, they are extremely well-built to extremely high tolerances so every hull comes out perfect. You can also see how much they can be rotated in place. Rotating molds speed production and increase quality because they are much easier to work on than static molds.

All Dufour hulls below 50-feet are built of solid fiberglass while the 500 GL (pictured above) and the 560 GL are laid up with solid fiberglass below the waterline and PVC core above the waterline to provide strength and stiffness. This photo also shows how workers reinforce high-load areas such as chainplate connections and keel areas with increased layers of fiberglass and resin.

Another important element of hull lamination is the fact that Dufour uses 2-part molds as you can see in the photos above. This makes it easy to release the finished hull from the mold, and it also allows for an inward-facing flange that forms a strong and elegant inward-facing hull-to-deck joint.

One of the first elements that’s added to freshly laid-up hull is the structural grid. This shot also shows what the inward-facing flange looks like and some of the other early tasks that are done at this stage like cutting out the hull ports and installing a strip of PVC core material to the aft area of the hull to provide increased stiffness. As a result of the high attention to detail paid in the early stages of construction, each hull comes out of the mold looking clean, sexy, and fast.

We’re never satisfied with the status quo and our high-tech facility allows us to build the best because every element of the production line is constantly being upgraded. We’re always to looking to improve efficiency and performance, but also you can also see below, we believe our production facility should be as beautiful as our boats.

Click here for part 2 of this multi-part series where we’ll explain the innovative process we use to build our decks.

Marina del Rey, California-based Dufour dealers Bill Petersen and Nereus Dastur have a pretty cool job. They take people sailing (among other things), and as you can see in the following aerial video they’ve shot, the new Dufour 500 GL is simply stunning.

But you can also see why the 500 GL was named one of SAIL Magazine’s Best Boats of 2014 and Cruising World Magazine’s Best Full Size Cruiser. It’s way, way more than just a pretty face.

Nothing beats the winter blahs better than sailing on a gorgeous boat on a warm afternoon. And if these videos have inspired you to find out more about the 500 GL or any other brand-new Dufour model, stop by and see Bill and Nereus at Denision Yacht Sales in Marina del Rey. They’d love to show you in person.

Or if you can’t make it to Southern California, here’s where you can find a knowledgeable Dufour dealer near you: